Opinion

Sportsmen hail wilderness policy change

Seven years ago, former Interior Secretary Gale Norton used an unprecedented interpretation of federal law (dubbed the "no more wilderness" policy) to remove federal protections from 500,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management lands in Colorado, and millions more across the West, making them vulnerable to activities such as mining, drilling and off-highway vehicle overuse and abuse. These public lands are vital winter range for mule deer, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain lions and other species.

Some BLM staff members stated publicly at the time that the administration had a single-minded focus on energy that trumped BLM's authority to manage federal land for multiple uses. One BLM wildlife biologist, who quit his job in 2006 to work for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), said he and other wildlife specialists were being required to spend almost all of their time on energy development.

The BLM — which oversees some of the finest open range, desert canyons, and high-alpine valleys in the world — was told early on by the previous administration to make drilling for oil and gas its top priority. A demoralized staff followed through, but "many described their jobs the way a cowboy talks about having to shoot his horse."

Recently, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reversed Norton's flawed policy. Sportsmen's groups support Salazar's action because it will help protect dwindling big game and other wildlife habitat that's being decimated by oil and gas drilling, and OHV overuse, on public lands across the West.

Advertisement

TRCP president Whit Fosburgh said, "We commend the federal government's efforts to permanently safeguard America's finest backcountry lands and the outdoor opportunities they offer sportsmen all across the nation by taking this necessary action."

Colorado's BLM public lands are home to some of the nation's largest migratory deer and elk herds, and hunting, managed by the Colorado Division of Wildlife, which plays an important role in sustaining Colorado's economic health.

BLM lands in Colorado recorded more than 700,000 hunting visits in 2009. These hunters, from across the state and nation, provide an economic boost to Colorado's rural economies. Hunting and other forms of outdoor recreation create jobs — more, in the long run, than oil and gas combined, because hunting and fishing don't pack up and go away once a gas field is exhausted. They do, however, go away when a gas field moves in, and 85 percent of the BLM lands in Colorado are open to oil and gas development. In contrast, only 1.7 percent are currently protected as wilderness.

Fosburgh notes that, "Public lands administered by the BLM in Wyoming's Upper Green River Basin host one of the nation's largest natural gas fields — and have seen 60 percent declines in mule deer numbers . . . . Sportsmen remain concerned that other high-value lands are destined for a similar fate if the BLM does not follow a new development model."

The BLM oversees about 8.4 million acres in Colorado, so there are plenty of other public lands that could be leased for mining, oil and gas drilling, or used for off-road recreation (nationwide, only 4 percent of BLM lands are closed to OHVs). The Denver Post reported that the same is true of other states, where the proportion of land available for such uses far outstrips the acreage that could be protected.

BLM holdings are often considered the "land that nobody wanted." During the great homestead period, settlers took choice valley bottoms and ignored the ridges and mountain slopes. Today these ridges and slopes across the West are superb big-game country. Let's keep it that way.

David A. Lien is co-chairman of Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

Missy Franklin, Jenny Simpson, Adeline Gray and three other Colorado women could be big players at the 2016 Rio OlympicsWhen people ask Missy Franklin for her thoughts about the Summer Olympics that will begin a year from Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, she hangs a warning label on her answer.